Patent Literature 1 discloses a rider detector for detecting the presence of a rider riding on a transporter. As shown in FIG. 16, this rider detector detects the presence of a rider by detecting an interruption of passage of a light beam 504 when the rider is riding on a base mat 501 and the base mat 501 and a base cover 503 located below the base mat are elastically deformed about a mat wall 502 of the base mat 501.
However, this rider detector has a large dead zone 510 in which the base mat 501 is not elastically deformed even when the rider is riding on the vehicle in the vicinity of the mat wall 502. That is, the rider detector has a problem that the accuracy of detecting the presence of a rider is low.